Cruel as the Grave (7 page)

Gerard stirred restlessly from the bed. “Father wants to see you for a few minutes this afternoon. I think he has a surprise for you, and if it’s what I suspect, I know you’ll be delighted.”

Maggie immediately felt uncomfortable. “But I don’t want any gifts,” she protested. “There’s no need for him to give me anything, Dad.”

Gently he reached down and tilted her face up toward his. “Just talk to him, and it will be all right, I promise you. He’s trying the best way he knows how to make amends, of a sort. So do your best to let him, okay?”

She smiled her acquiescence. She stood up beside her father and said, “Let me have a few minutes to myself before I go to see him.” She kissed him on the cheek, then pushed him gently toward the door. “I’ll see you later. Why don’t you go lie down for a while? I think you could use some rest, don’t you?"

Gerard gave her a quick hug before leaving her.

Now that she was alone and could think about it, Maggie considered what her father had told her. The violence of her grandmother’s death shocked her. Sensibly she didn’t blame her father or her grandfather for the accident, but the tragedy of it saddened her. The longer she dwelled on it, though, the more likely she was to spend the afternoon crying in her room.

Resolutely closing the door behind her, she strode down the hall toward her grandfather’s room. Her heart beating a little rapidly, Maggie knocked on his door.

Sylvia answered Maggie’s knock, but this was a Sylvia Maggie hadn’t expected to see. Sylvia, the nurse, was cool, professional, a brisk efficiency having replaced the aloof, Madonna-like woman from earlier in the day.
Maybe it’s the uniform
, Maggie thought in amusement, as Sylvia ushered her into Henry McLendon’s bedroom.

“Here’s Maggie, Uncle Henry,” Sylvia announced cheerfully, rousing her patient from a slight doze.

Henry McLendon blinked once, twice, then Maggie could glimpse the vitality she had seen earlier return to his fierce eyes. He was visibly more tired than he had been earlier in the day, yet he still contained the spark of energy that wouldn’t let him give in completely to the restrictions of age and illness.

He stretched out a welcoming hand that wavered only slightly before Maggie grasped it in her own. Impulsively, she bent forward to kiss his cheek, and she could tell that her action pleased the old man. He patted the bed beside him and motioned for her to sit there, rather than in the chair drawn up for visitors.

For a long moment they gazed unblinkingly into each other’s eyes. Apparently what Henry saw pleased him, for a satisfied smile creased his worn face. She couldn’t help but smile back, although the unwelcome vision of her father in old age frightened her.

Her grandfather’s expression turned serious. “I suppose by now Gerard has told you everything?”

Maggie nodded. For a few moments she had forgotten her feelings of resentment, still half-realized, toward this old man for his unreasoning stiffness toward her father, and the recollection of those feelings now disturbed her. Henry read something of this from the expression in her face, for he laughed softly.

“Don’t fret, child, it’s okay if you want to be aggravated with me just a while longer. The Lord only knows I deserve worse.” He sobered abruptly. “Your father wasn’t to blame for Magnolia’s death, and I knew that all along, I suppose.” Watching him closely, Maggie nodded, “No, he wasn’t, and neither were you.”

He smiled again. “You’re straightforward with your feelings—I like that. I’m not going to ask for your forgiveness— it’s a little late for that, I’d say—because all of that’s really between me and your father anyway, and we’ve made our peace. I reckon I lost more in the long run than you or your father, because I cost myself a son and a granddaughter, and there’s not much I can do now to rectify that. Though I can’t make up for all the mistakes I made in the past, I can set things to rights about your grandmother’s death, however, after all these years,” he added obscurely.

She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, because the tone of the remark puzzled her as much as its content.

Watching her, Henry shook his head and said, “There’s time enough for that later. Just something I should have taken care of long before now.” He patted her hand affectionately. “In the meantime, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

Maggie inclined her head warily. “Yes, sir?”

“Your father tells me that you have the same taste in reading as your grandmother did,” he said.

She smiled, and Henry’s hand tightened upon hers as she replied. “Yes, sir, I could hardly believe it when I walked into her room and saw all those bookshelves just stuffed with books by most of my favorite writers. That, and seeing her portrait, really made me feel like I had come home, in a sense.”

Her grandfather smiled sadly. “I’m delighted to hear that, because I want you, from now on, to consider all those books yours.”

He smiled again, happily this time, at Maggie’s gasp of surprise and incoherent words of denial. “Now, my dear, don’t argue with me over this. It’s not like I’m really giving them to you. I know your grandmother would love for you to have them all—it’s more of a trust I’m passing on to you than an actual gift. What do you say to that?”

She thought back to what her father had said to her. Why deny her grandfather the obvious pleasure of this gift? Especially when it would mean so much to her in the years to come? “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice husky with unshed tears. She leaned forward to kiss his cheek again and give him a hug, resting lightly against him. He returned the pressure briefly. Maggie drew back.

Seeing the tiredness in his eyes, she stood up slowly. “I think I’d better go so you can get some rest. This has certainly been a busy day for us all.” Awkwardly, this was all she could think of to say.

Hemy McLendon inclined his head on the pillow. “I think you’re right,” he replied. “I’m glad you and your father came home, child.”

“So am I, Grandfather,” she said, doing her best to hold back tears. He looked so frail and so old to her.

As Maggie moved back away from the bed, she stepped against the bedside chair, which in turn caused something propped against it to slide to the floor with a muffled thud. “What on earth?” she muttered as she bent over to retrieve a baseball bat. As she picked it up, she saw that the varnish that had once protected all the names hastily scrawled on the surface was flaking off here and there.

Henry laughed. “That’s just an old souvenir your father got out of his room—at my request. I daresay he’d forgotten all about it, but that’s the bat he was using when he hit a home run his senior year in high school. He won the state championship for his team with that bat—it was the only home run he ever hit.”

Maggie knew that her father was a big baseball fan. Very little ever interfered with his watching games on the weekends, and he attended as many Astros home games as possible. He had never talked much about playing himself.

Smiling fondly, she propped the bat once more against the chair. “I guess he’ll be back to get it later.” Feeling something on her hand, Maggie inspected her palm and discovered a few small flakes of varnish from the bat. She brushed her hand absentmindedly against her skirt.

“I imagine so,” Henry replied tiredly.

Sylvia stepped forward then. “You really need to get some rest now, Uncle Henry,” she chided him fondly. “You’ve been talking to somebody or another all afternoon, and it’s time you took a nap. You’ll have plenty of time to visit with Maggie tomorrow.”

“I’ll take a nap if you’ll hush fussing at me,” Henry grumbled. “If you had your way I’d never talk to anybody. I’d just sleep all the time!”

Sylvia laughed as she guided Maggie toward the door. “Don’t pay any attention to him—he’ll talk the horns off a billy goat if you give him the chance.” She lowered her voice as they reached the door. “But all this talking really does wear him out, and he’s had practically the whole family up here this afternoon, along with you and Gerard. I’m afraid he’s overdone it a little.”

Maggie nodded. “You’re right, I know, but this has been a pretty big day for us all.”

Sylvia patted her on the shoulder. “I’m really glad you’ve come home, especially for his sake.” She bobbed her head backwards in Henry’s direction.

Squeezing Sylvia’s hand briefly, Maggie slipped out the door with a smile. “See you later.”

Maggie went once again to her bathroom to bathe her face in cold water. Staring in the mirror, she said, “This is ridiculous. No more crying today.” Her head ached slightly, and she wished for some aspirin. She checked the medicine cabinet and, sure enough, there was a new bottle of aspirin, its seal still intact. She opened it and filled a glass with water, then downed two tablets.

Back in the bedroom, reclining on the bed, she contemplated what she should do next. Before she could give it much thought, a knock sounded at her door. Startled, she got off the bed and called out, “Come in.”

Briskly the door swung open, and Adrian Worthington stepped into the room. He flashed a brief smile at Maggie. “Harold asked me to let you know he’d see you at dinner. Your father told him Mr. McLendon had asked to speak with you, so Harold thought you’d probably rather wait until later for a tour of the house.”

An attractive butler in khakis and polo shirt was outside the realm of Maggie’s experience, so she stood there not knowing quite what to say to the man, even how she should address him. “Thank you for letting me know,” she finally stammered. “I was thinking about my uncle and how to find him when you knocked on my door.”

He smiled again, which did nothing to ease the onslaught of her jitters. “That’s pretty easy, actually, Miss McLendon.” He moved to the telephone beside her bed.

“Please, call me Maggie,” she said hurriedly, uncomfortable at being called “Miss” by someone only a few years older than she.

“Maggie,” he repeated, and she swallowed convulsively as she stepped closer in answer to his motioning hand. She rather liked the way he said her name, the way he lingered slightly over the first syllable.
Better watch it,
she admonished herself silently.
Why?
herself asked back.

Quickly and concisely Adrian explained to Maggie the in-house phone system. Each phone had two lines, one an outside line and the other for in-house calls only. Under the phone lay a handy list of all the house extension numbers.

“And if you can’t catch up with the person you want to talk to,” he said, “you can always dial the extension in the butler’s pantry. It rings in the kitchen also, so during the day, anyway, someone will always answer that line and get a message to me.”

“Thank you,” Maggie responded. “I think I can handle this. It certainly makes sense to have a system like this in a house this size.” She shook her head wonderingly. “Otherwise I don’t know how you’d ever find anybody.”

He nodded. “Yes, it is handy. Now,” he said as he turned toward the door, “is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Yes, there are two things, actually. The first is: When is dinner, and how should I dress?”

“Dinner’s at six-thirty, and dress around here is always pretty casual. What you’re wearing now is fine.” His eyes moved appraisingly—and approvingly—over Maggie’s figure.

Coloring slightly—whether from irritation or pleasure, she wouldn’t stop to decide—Maggie posed her second question before she lost her nerve. “What should I call you? I’ve never known a butler before—if that’s what you are, because I’m really not sure—and I have no idea what you prefer.”
That sounded pretty ditsy,
she told herself.
Now he thinks you’re a complete idiot!

He pursed his lips to keep from laughing. “You can call me whatever you like. Worthington, or Adrian, if you prefer. The family isn’t very big on formality, you may have noticed.” He opened the door, and Maggie stared at the muscles in his shoulders. The polo shirt fit his body very nicely. “And butler will do just as well as anything for a job title.”

“Um, thank you for all the information... Adrian.” She collected her thoughts enough to say this before the door shut behind him. He gave her a wink in farewell.

Limply, Maggie sat down on her bed. Adrian, as she now forced herself to call him, definitely intrigued her. His manner of speaking marked him as well-educated, and he had an assurance of manner with nothing servile about it. Perhaps a little probing of Helena—discreet, of course—would yield some information about his background.

Yes, she was interested in him. And, for some reason, she thought he might be interested in her. Otherwise, why would he come up to her room to deliver Harold’s message, when he could as easily have called her on the efficient house telephone system?

Shrugging aside her speculations, Maggie decided to explore her grandmother’s—correction, her—collection of books before dinner. She was touched by her grandfather’s gesture, and it was one she hadn’t the heart to refuse. This link with the grandmother she had never known was a precious one, and these books were a gift she would always treasure simply because they had been loved by her grandmother.

In complete happiness Maggie lost track of time exploring the contents of her new collection, finding several wonderful surprises. With a start, she noticed the time around six- fifteen. Hurriedly she went into the bathroom to wash her hands and face and to brush her hair again, deciding as she did so that her traveling clothes would have to do for dinner, because she didn’t want to spend time dithering over what was suitable to wear. Besides, Adrian had told her the family didn’t really care about formalities such as dressing for dinner.

Downstairs, she found that Adrian had meant what he said. Helena had changed her red running suit for one in strident purple. Of them all, only Retty appeared to have “dressed” for dinner, this by having added a cashmere sweater to her outfit of the day.

The food was superb and plenteous. Afterward Maggie couldn’t remember what they had actually had to eat, because the conversation was so lively she never had time to concentrate on what she was putting into her mouth. The fact that Adrian was sitting beside her again occupied her thoughts more than did the food.